


Is It That Obvious?

by LapisLazooti



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Character Study, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Implied Relationships, Neurodiversity, Not Relationship Oriented, RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria), Short One Shot, Therapy, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark has ADHD, kind of?, learning to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 04:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15186617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapisLazooti/pseuds/LapisLazooti
Summary: Tony wasn't sure what to think or feel about this. Or what he should even do with the new information presented to him, for that matter. Wasn't how he was normal? Wasn't everyone like this? Wasn't he just a bit... less-functional than the average Joe? Apparently fucking not, according to his therapist and newly diagnosed ADHD.





	Is It That Obvious?

Tony wasn't sure what to think or feel about this. Or what he should even do with the new information presented to him, for that matter. Wasn't how he was normal? Wasn't everyone like this? Wasn't he just a bit... less-functional than the average Joe? Apparently fucking not, according to his therapist and newly diagnosed ADHD.

Stephen had talked him into going to therapy to address the increasingly frequent panic attacks and cripplingly vivid flashbacks and nightmares that plagued him. It didn't come as a surprise when post-traumatic stress was a diagnosis, but when the psychiatrist handed him a grid filled with questions to be ticked off either on never, rarely, sometimes, or often a few sessions in, he became unsure. He thought it was strange, this didn't seem like much. They were questions like, 'How often are you easily distracted by external stimuli, like something in your environment or unrelated thoughts?' or, 'How often do you lose, misplace or damage something that's necessary in order to get things done?'.

The vast majority of the questions were things that Tony assumed applied to most everyone. They were things that he dealt with since childhood. Who didn't get agitated in a room full of people, with too many voices and movements at once? Who didn't feel the need to fidget during conversations or just doing work? Nothing out of the norm. That's what he initially thought, at least, and then his therapist looked at the filled out sheet, cross-referencing a document from her computer and scribbling something down on a paper beside the form. She held it up, pointing out the row of gray that encompassed some of the questions. "The checks in the gray are what I really needed to pay attention to." Most of his sloppy check marks were placed in said gray boxes. The woman across from him let out a small laugh. "In all honesty, I probably didn't even need to properly grade this to tell you have ADHD. Primarily in inattentive, it seems." She added after double checking her notes.

Tony walked out to the waiting room with papers in hand; various articles and informational brochures about attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder - particularly about how it manifested in adults. He took a seat next to where Stephen was reading, waiting for him, the taller man setting his book down when he joined him.

"...You look extremely confused," Stephen started with an unsure chuckle. "Everything go alright this session?"

Tony held up the small stack of cheap printer paper and unnervingly serious looking brochures with a dazed look over his face. "I just got diagnosed with ADHD."

An expression of realization dawned on his boyfriend's face. He calmly slipped his book into his bag, before leaning back in the surprisingly comfy waiting room chair. "I'm not sure how that didn't occur to me."

"Is it that obvious?" He was... perplexed. In his childhood, he'd never been the type of kid to be bouncing off the walls during class or that got in trouble because he was acting out in another way - that's usually what people thought of when they heard the term. He was always a good student. He had good grades. But... He had always struggled with a terrible memory. Spacing off, always missing chunks of conversations simply because his mind wandered onto something else. Howard always told him to 'just focus' when he was assigned projects from his father.

Maybe this wasn't so preposterous.

"I wouldn't say obvious. But now that you say it, I can certainly pick out quite a few times where you've shown a lot of symptoms."

"...I need to do some research."

And he did. The second they were back home he read and re-read the articles he was given (re-read partially because he didn't soak it all in the first time. Apparently that was yet another thing that went hand in hand with this disorder). He looked online, found posts from people on forums who had been diagnosed for much larger chunks of their lives and were discussing the problems they had and finding comfort in other's that were like them.

He wondered if he could find that.

When he looked at the clock, it was two am. He knew Stephen had already gone to bed - but it wasn't uncommon for him to go to bed early, so he had assumed it was only eight or so. How long had he just been sitting here at his computer? Was that yet another thing he could attribute to his - apparently - atypical brain? With his luck, it probably was.

He wasn't... Shocked anymore. He was relieved. He wasn't broken; his brain was simply wired differently. When Howard yelled at him as a child for not being able to complete a simple task, it wasn't his fault. It wasn't him being stupid or useless, it was executive dysfunction. The strikes he had received across tapping fingers with a wooden ruler from his father or his teachers weren't warranted. His mind needed to fidget in order to concentrate. Things he'd been criticized for all his life had a name now. They weren't just intangible struggles that left him feeling incompetent, it was just the way his brain worked. And there were ways to learn how to manage it and adapt to allow his neurodivergence to work with his lifestyle. There were medications he could pursue as well if he so desired. 

He decided to try out other options, first, delve into the coping mechanisms that had been suggested in his research. He soon had a solid collection of just about every type of fidget and stim toy out there to test out what he liked best, discovered the joy of noise cancelling headphones and weighted blankets. He allowed himself to take breaks from situations where he became overstimulated and was able to identify when it was happening and how to calm down. Stephen helped him greatly as well, being able to defuse situations where Tony lashed out or had breakdowns when any of the other Avengers made an offhand comment that triggered something - something he learned after the first breakdown following his diagnosis was called rejection sensitive dysphoria. That was the shittiest symptom he'd discovered, and past trauma didn't help, only held hands with the unfortunate manifestation. 

His boyfriend also helped with concentration techniques, with small things here and there such as aromatherapy to give his brain a little extra kick. It was greatly appreciated, even if it didn't help all that much. Most of the time he could get his work done anyway, comprehend words said to him or being read without too much difficulty - by his standards, at least. 

But there were bad days. Days where no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted to do something, his brain kept switching channels and concentrating on something else. Days where someone would say something to him two, three times and he just couldn't understand them. It made him feel like the stupidest man alive, feel like the praise in magazines or articles from scholars were all lies. It was unbearably frustrating on those days.

Those days fewer than the normal or even good ones, however, especially as his therapy sessions went on and the library of coping methods at his disposal grew. He'd unknowingly dealt with this his entire life, after all - if he could work around it all that time...

He was determined to now, too.

**Author's Note:**

> UGHHHHH i would have loved to do more with this, and maybe I will in the future.
> 
> But right now it's 1AM and i've been struggling to finish the last 150-200 words of this for like,, the past 6 hours because my brain just Wouldn't or I kept getting distracted even though I really did want to work on this. Pretty damn ironic considering I was trying to write a fic about adhd, huh
> 
> I also want to note that i DO have adhd and i'm not just talking outta my ass here. This was written as somewhat of a vent/comfort fic as I've only recently been diagnosed. Tony was already big comfort characters for me, and then I noticed that he shares a lot of the same symptoms as i do and aaaaaa...... projection make brain feel good


End file.
